Sony's position when developing the PS3 was similar to Nintendo's when they developed the N64;  they did not need to listen to anyone else - or so they thought. PS3 had the DSP as a CPU because this was what Sony was planning to use on all it's devices. If I recall PS3 wasn't supposed to have a dedicated GPU in the first place and as an afterthought it was "upgraded" having two Cell-processors, until that idea was ditched too. I believe it was the developers that wanted a dedicated GPU (and that without it 360 had been a lot more powerful, atleast graphically) so that the the system could be programmed at a relative ease in comparison.

Well, I can see the downsides with the competing teams too, but that's how things are done even today around the world. Of course it depends a lot whether your worst competitor is the other team or the competing company.

Nintendo mostly managed to fix it's issues with 3rd parties already with Gamecube, the new CEO surely helped a lot in that regard, but since GC did not sell, the 3rd parties were not interested in it. When Wii came out, nobody wanted to develop games on it because of it's lack of system power relative to competition. It was also why it was hard to port any PS360 games to. Wii could have had ports of PSP games, because it was a lot easier to make. Switch is interesting 3rd parties because of it's sales numbers and since there aren't other handheld systems, the 3rd parties' dev resources for handhelds go to Switch.

I understand, but it's still the same resources that the company is using and the same cash register the comes to regardless of which they are selling. The hardware is the box to get to play the games.

And those same resources generate less return on investment when a console is failing than when a console is succeeding. Had Gamecube sold as well as the NES, Nintendo would have been far better off. There's just no way around the fact that on Yamauchi's watch their consoles went from great success to failure.

Yup, Sony was making the same mistakes as N64-era Nintendo was during that time. They were convinced their market dominance was enough to sell a console on the back of pure brand loyalty and flashy gimmicks (Cell, Blu-Ray, SIXAXIS) without any regards to what actual game creators thought of it. For example, Shuhei Yoshida, then Senior VP of WWS America didn't even know about the PS3 controller having motion controls until a phone call from someone in PR, so teams had to shove it in at the last minute during development of their games. Hence so many early first party games on PS3 having tacked-on SIXAXSIS controls (LAIR).

The GameCube was the start, but it would take Iwata nearly a decade to completely fix up the mess that Yamauchi made with third parties in the 90s.

The Wii was going after a very different market from the PS3 and Xbox 360. Developers knew that, and so for a while, it actually had pretty good support for the kind of platform it was. Developers were making PS2/PSP multiplatform games like Baroque and Silent Hill: Shatered Memories, exclusives like No More Heroes and Elebits, and enhanced ports with improved controls like Resident Evil 4. Things only fell apart for Wii when HDTVs and HD development costs came down in price, third party sales started becoming volatile, Wii gaining an image of a "casuals" console, and both Sony and Microsoft introducing their own Motion Control platforms, which stole a lot of developers from the Wii, leaving it with mostly shovelware during its later years.

The Wii U was designed as a reaction to these changes by being HD, and having a giant GamePad with traditional controls come standard. Problem is, it came out far too late (2012), didn't have enough compelling games in its launch period, had a name and marketing that didn't make it clear it was a new platform, was riding on a brand that had lost all of its momentum, had a woefully outdated architecture and SDK, and by the time it was ready to release, the PS4 and Xbox One were already around the corner.

The Nintendo Switch is basically the Wii's original pitch for the modern age. It's a Blue-Ocean product with a unique gimmick that doesn't compete directly with PlayStation and Xbox. And while its under-powered compared to those consoles, it makes up for it with a flexible, well known architecture that's easy and cheap to develop for. Only this time, it supports all the modern game dev tools and has a full button layout of standard game controllers. It's a big reason why the Switch has so many "Impossible Ports", indie games, and AA titles.

They do, but the resources are in use for handhelds. Yamauchi's problem was to get late to the game. Even NES had sold a lot more if had been released earlier in Europe. By the time NES was out, the market was dominated by game centric computers. As consoles never gained such a popularity in Europe they did in Japan and North-America, Sony managed to had a good hold on this when people were replacing their old Commodores and Amigas. But at the same time the home consoles sales went for worse, handheld sales went for the better.

Consoles sales could still have continued to be great alongside that though, it just didn't happen that way cos N64 and Gamecube were poorly managed. Whatever Yamauchi's wins, and he absolutely deserves credit for them, it also has to be acknowledged that he was responsible for multiple misfires too.

The PS3 motion controls came as a surprise to everyone because the controller itself had the motion controls tacked on only after Nintendo revealed Wii, actually Revolution, controller having such feature - especially when people were positive about it. I think it was a perfect example how the incumbents try to copy disruptor without understanding the basis for the function they copy. This was why Nintendo revealed the controller as late as possible. Going back to 90's, Nintendo had the analog controller, so it was copied as soon as possible. Nintendo had the FFB add-on with rumble pack, next it was copied as dual shock. I think even Nintendo kind of ended up missing the point with Motion plus, although it was released when Nintendo expected the competitors to release their own motion controllers. Motion plus was kind of meh. I wouldn't say the late time for Sixaxis was really Sony's arrogance, but rather them being forced to react to Nintendo.

Instead Wii U, they should have released a updated Wii with 1080p HDMI port atleast a year earlier. Myself having a Wii U, the best feature of the system was being able to play Wii games via HDMI that eliminates large chunk of the lag on HDTV's. I wouldn't say Wii was a blue ocean product, as it was disruptive with different values. It was sold to same people who already were gamers, but the system had different values so that you had to get yourself a Wii to get the experience regardless whether you had another system or not. Microsofts "Wii60" campaign was kind of a proof MS understood this. It was Wii's successor that was originally supposed to drive Playstation off of homes - kind of DS to 3DS. Wii U ended up overshooting pretty much everything and nobody wanted the expensive gimmicky controller.

I think Switch is more in lines with Gameboy. There's really not much "Touch generations" -type software on it, although it's a multiplayer system like home consoles. Maybe they have plans for Switch 2 to feature software for expanded audience.

Of course. When you run a company for a long time, you have your misfires. If you don't, you have done nothing meaningful either - it's trial and error. Gamecube did suffer from bad decisions made with N64 that Iwata tried to fix during the GC era. If the console sales had been better, Nintendo surely had grown it's developer base and made more money. Now they just shifted the resources to where they were most useful. Then again, if Nintedo had been serious with Gamecube, it would have had more development resources. I believe there were many games cancelled because of the lack of interest to divert resources to GC, such as Eternal Darkness 2, that apparently was supposed to follow the first one.

The point is, Sony crammed a feature into their console without even briefing their own developers on what it was or how it could be used, or if it was even a good idea at the time. This was Sony's mentality at the time. They thought they could shove in whatever crap into their box and just expect devs to learn it. It was a problem Sony wouldn't rectify until later half of the PS3's life starting with PlayStation Move. Move was the first project at SCE that incorporated WWS developers into the creative process of PlayStation platform development, and PS Vita, PS4, PSVR, and PS5 continued this trend.

I kind of agree. If nothing else, Nintendo should've fought harder against the image of the Wii being a lame "casual" console during its later years, cause it's not like they were helping that image with disasters like E3 08. The thing people kind of forget about the Wii is that it had the games, plenty of so-called "core" games. But Nintendo wasn't aggressive enough in promoting that side of the Wii's library in its later half. Operation Rainfall is a perfect example of that, where Nintendo just decided not to release high quality AAA releases in America, even when they were already there. The Wii U felt like a lame attempt to try and win back the "core gamer" that should've came out in 2009, not 2012.

The Switch is the result of Nintendo learning what worked, and what didn't work with their past two generations of hardware, to create a console that feels like it belongs in the modern era, with a practical gimmick that actually fits modern lifestyles. I mean there's some "Touch Generations" type games on it. But it's not the focus because "Touch Generations" type games aren't new or novel like they were in 2006. Not to mention, gaming is a much more accessible and easy to get into medium than it was in the mid-2000s, so building a console that "expands the gaming population" just wasn't going to fly in the modern age when games are at everybody's fingertips. The Switch was designed with this in mind, and is equipped to handle any kind of gaming lifestyle. From casual touch screen games, to deep console experiences, and has experiences that are unique to it like Ring-Fit Adventure and Splatoon.

A big reason the Switch is so successful though also, is because it's an easy console to take with you and share with a friend. Why do you think Mario Kart 8 DX is it's best selling game? Because it's the one that's best suited to the Switch's hook of being a console-on-the-go that you can play with a friend right out of the box.

This may be a hot take, but I think Iwata’s charm and trying to help Nintendo open up to the public with its development process is a bit…overrated. Sure, it was cool learning game development tidbits from him and the rest of Nintendo. It was cool seeing Robot Chicken and Muppets be involved in their E3 presentations. It was charming to see Iwata give the “Direct” sign to us in Nintendo Directs. Unfortunately, it didn’t necessarily lead to improved success for them during the 3DS/Wii U generation.

Plus, Iwata wasn’t infallible himself. The YouTube Creators Program, the struggle with simultaneous releases, region locking, and even C&Ding fan games back then. Hell, Nintendo even tried to stop Melee from being part of EVO under Iwata’s watch. Sure, they reversed their decision, but you can’t ignore the initial actions.

At least to me, even with Reggie and Iwata gone from the company, Nintendo hasn’t necessarily deviated much from who they are as a company from when Iwata was in charge to now. Sure, directs are more streamlined, they may look more “corporate,” but they still want to share fun experiences. Koizumi and Takahashi aren’t gonna charm people as Iwata did, but they’re serviceable presenters and have led the way to Nintendo’s incredible success. If people missed Ask Iwata, they’re still doing dev stories with their upcoming games with Ask the Developers and, from 2017 till mid-2023, they had the Nintendo Power Podcast.

To me, Nintendo still remains Nintendo, the good and the bad, before, during, and after Iwata.